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Friday, December 28, 2012

War Control by Cindy Sheehan

War Control

Cindy Sheehan

No More War by Ben Heine

Full disclosure: I hate guns;
I always have—even before my oldest son was killed by a gun shot to the head in a
foreign land that the US was/still is occupying. (By the way, Casey had a gun, armor, albeit inadequate, PLUS the First Cavalry, and he was still killed by a gun...interesting). I desperately wish we lived in
a country, or on a planet, where not one weapon was necessary, but we don’t...yet.

After the recent tragedy in
Sandy Hook, Ct, the predictable blather became the recycled “debate” about “gun
control.” However, as profoundly devastating is that incident, I think the
discussion needs to be around “War Control.” Besides saving millions of lives, while the Pentagon just received over 600 billion of your tax dollars and needs to be shoved over the Fiscal Cliff, pushing War Control could also save OUR Social Safety Nets that Obama and his buddy, Boehner, are trying to destroy.

I am not opposed to back
ground checks and waiting lists for gun ownership, but why is that restriction only
placed on citizens? Here in the US we have an epidemic of Killer Cops and I
believe that any new applicant to any police force needs to be first subjected to the
most stringent background and psychiatric screening AND, then, the hopeful cop
would have to pass the screening of a citizens' personnel review board that is
comprised of a diverse cross-section of community members before he/she is
allowed to openly carry a weapon in society. Why are our police forces becoming so militarized anyway? Obviously, to protect the 1%, not us.

Why is this image socially
acceptable in MOST circles?

To me, the above image is
disgusting—that is supposedly a police force, not Navy Seal Team 6!

Gun koo-koos and Second
Amendment Advocates have extreme emotional attachments to their guns and when I
say that I “hate guns,” one would think I said that I hated babies or kittens,
the reaction is so extreme. But putting our love of things that go “boom”
aside, what does the Second Amendment to the US Constitution actually say?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall
not be infringed."

I wonder how many lovers of
the Second Amendment actually belong to a “well regulated Militia?" And what does that
even mean? My point is, that if anyone thinks that he/she owns guns to fight
the US police/war state in open rebellion, that concept is ridiculous. When the
Second Amendment was written, more people died of infection or gangrene than
died of the actual musket shot. In the days of gun powder and musket balls, the people may have had a
fighting chance against the state—now our weapons are like fleas to an
elephant. We are more powerful in concentrated resistance, not rebellion,
anyway.

Besides the emotionally charged issue of gun control, why are few people making this point as Martin Luther King, Jr. did so
eloquently in his Beyond Vietnam Speech exactly one year before he was assassinated:
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the
world today is my own government.”

Why, President Barack Obama
even has his very own Kill List and an entire bloated military establishment to do his filthy killing
for him. In Sandy Hook we rightfully mourn the deaths of those beautiful children,
but in Pakistan, the ones killed in Obama’s drone attacks are called, “bug
splat” by the drone pilots pulling the trigger thousands of miles away.
However, the mentally ill murderer of 20 children in Sandy Hook is correctly vilified
and pitied, while the by proxy baby killer, Obama, is enthusiastically welcomed and celebrated
almost everywhere he goes. I don't get it.

Presidents of the US are
inherently the CEO’s of a huge war machine that has momentum on its own, but
why does putting ones hand on a bible and swearing an oath confer respectability
upon mass murder? Here’s an even stickier question? Why, in the eyes of some,
is mass murder by, say, someone named George Bush (R) more horrendous than the
slaughter by a couple named Barack Obama (D) and Bill Clinton (D)? I obviously
think any murderer is a low-life scum and wearing an expensive suit and tie
and traveling with ones own squad of heavily armed goons does not give cover to murdering the innocent.

And, guess what,
Faux-gressives? The NRA (National Rifle Association) isn’t really THE
problem (I am not saying that I support the NRA, I don’t) and making it so is a huge distraction away from the real problem. According to the website, Open
Secrets, here is the K Street (lobbying firms) Top 20 for government
payola:

I don’t see the NRA anywhere on the
above list, but I see a lot of war profiteers and oil companies…hmm? In 2012, the
same site shows that the NRA spent a little over two million lobbying Congress--chump change to GE.
And honestly, I have seen a few NRA spokesmen (I am not practicing gender-exclusive language, they're always men) on the “news” lately and
they are not very articulate or well rounded. Their arguments boil down to
basically, “ugh, we like guns, ugh.”

I was in Los Angeles the past
few days where the LAPD was conducting another gun "turn-in." Private citizens bring
in guns with no questions asked and then receive a grocery gift card depending
on the value of the weapon. That's also a great strategy for War Control and I propose we pay the war machine NOT to produce
implements of death and to go away and just leave the world alone.

In conclusion:

If owning a gun is wrong for
Joe NRA, then it’s wrong for Officer Not-So-Friendly.

If it’s wrong to kill
children in the US, then it’s wrong to kill children EVERYWHERE else.

If killing is wrong for me, then
it’s wrong for Obama and the Empire.

I dream of (and work really
hard for) the day when War Control is a reality and our priorities honor the beating of every heart while we watch our deadly tools of war rust, breakdown, and return to the soil.

9 comments:

I often wonder why in a "Progressive" city like Portland, Oregon police are allowed to bring in their guns to City Hall even when we citizens are criticizing the police actions. Seem here is a place we should all be in agreement, this is not a good idea. Murder is murder and Cindy is correct when she points out it should make no difference if the murderer is me or Obama. We say we are a land of laws, that is the first lie. Good and noble article, Thanks Cindy.

The proliferation of weapons in this nation is so large as to make so-called gun control an unreachable goal. There are more weapons than people out there!

The actions of that crazed child murderer in Newtown, Conn. and those of the drone "pilot" murdering Afghan or Pakistani children have, I believe, the same root cause; a sickness in our culture. If we wish to end violence, whether here or abroad we must focus upon the illness and not the weaponry.

Certainly there is a logical reason to banish high capacity magazines and rapid fire weaponry, I would not argue that at all. But a ten year war rages, one doomed from the first to failure and one begun for nefarious reasons as well. That certainly must contribute to the illness we find all around us, and may be manifest in the paramilitary police forces more resembling special forces than civilian agents.

With our police increasingly killing civilians, whether by bullet or by tazer, I think we seek in the wrong place to end the violence that grows around us.

I am not for forcing people to hand over guns. Force is a brutes method of solving problems and it is highly ineffective one too. Without solving the illness in our culture as you said we should do, and I agree; a ban on guns will likely push most of the trade underground in black markets where there is no government oversight - sorta like what happened with illegal drugs. The threat of punishment will not stop someone who is highly motivated, it'll just make them more careful not to get caught.

I agree with you and would only add that an underground "black market" selling weapons already exists. Forcing folks to give up their guns will only strengthen the resolve of most to hold onto them even more, and even add to those who think it necessary to arm themselves.

Hundreds of millions of us own guns and only a tiny percentage commit crimes with those weapons. We need better health care in this nation, one that can deal with the mentally ill as well as the physically ill. We certainly need better leadership in our government, one that might understand that war, murder and torture make for a sick nation.

I understand why war must feature so centrally to your mission, but I'm saddened that you can so effortlessly parlay the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school into just more anti-war fodder.

I completely agree that the US has become a war monger, a hypocrite, a killer of children and a profiteer, but the problem stems from a much deeper cultural obsession with violence. Taken in combination with fierce individualism, chauvinism and greed, it has produced a society of macho, pseudo-Christian, hero-worshipping weekend warriors who see the death of 20 young children merely as the price of freedom.

I agree, on all counts, about more thoroughly vetting potential gun owners (if not just banning guns) AS WELL AS law enforcement, in the larger picture of America-as-war-monger, but it mustn't come at the expense of very real societal problems (specifically mental health and the drugs we prescribe) that have little to do with national security, big oil, or foreign policy.

The US government loses any legitimate authority to enforce gun control when it uses weaponry violence against others to solve its problems. It's like a drug addict telling other drug addicts not to take drugs. It is right that we should ask the government to stop killing people before handing them the authority to enforce any kind of gun control.

As a gun owning libertarian I like many aspects of this article. After the Occupy debacle the left is starting to understand the dangers of govt. My disagreement with the article is that while we're disarming the govt we need to continue to have an armed populace. Part of the militia idea was to have a force capable of defending but not attacking overseas. In the 18th century they didn't have police forces like today. The militia handled many of those functions too. There’s never a good time to talk about disarming the people. What the discussion should be about is disarming the govt. Now there’s some gun control I can get behind! There is a massive imbalance between the power of the govt & the power of the people. Not only the military but the law enforcement establishment here are overwhelmingly strong. We need to start shifting the power away from the govt by putting these functions back in the people’s hands where they belong. Please consider the points I made in the 2 blog posts below:

Please limit your comments to the content of the posts---not your self-perceived, self-righteous, personal opinions of the authors/activists who post at this blog. Personal attacks, or threats of violence will not be posted....moderator.

Thanks to geke.us for these pie Venn Diagrams showing what really runs this country. Still think you can vote your way out of this?...

MISSION STATEMENT

Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox is an independent online radio show and blog that strives to be completely free from establishment political ideology and focus on a message of peace, justice, environmental sustainability and economic equality. To this end, we provide educational and inspirational programs on topics related to these issues and we organize/promote actions working towards peace, justice, and environmental sustainability.